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Choosing
music for your website
by Alan
Steward, a professional recording engineer
Many webmasters like the idea of adding background music
to their web sites but most shy away from doing it, worrying about slow
loading pages and large file sizes. There are many different ways to add
background music to your site and some of them don't require large files
to achieve professional results. Let's examine all the different ways to
add background music to your site and rate them to find the best
solution for you.
1) MIDI Files
MIDI files are very small because they actually use your sound card's
built-in instruments to create the sounds. The problem is that most
sound cards don't have any decent sounds to start with, plus no two
sound cards sound alike and therefore the results are very
unpredictable. MIDI files usually sound like they're coming from one of
those cheap Casio keyboards. Using MIDI for background music is very
likely to make your site seem amateurish. Want to know how to do it
anyway? Just add the <embed src=xyz.mid autostart=true> line to
your site. (Replace xyz with the name of the MIDI file you want to use!)
The Autostart command will play the file automatically when the page is
loaded.
PROS: Very small file size, easy to implement
CONS: Unpredictable results, amateurish sounds
2) WAV Files
Using the WAV file format allows you to add professional sounding
recordings to your site but the problem is that even if you use a low
quality setting like 11k/8bit, the file sizes are still very large and
it will take a long time for your music to load. And slow loading pages
are the worst thing that can happen to a site. Implementing a WAV file
on a web page is easy. Just add the line <embed src=xyz.wav autostart=true>
to your page's HTML code. There's an additional command to loop the WAV
file but WAV files do not loop cleanly with the embed command.
PROS: Many Quality Levels, Easy to implement
CONS: Large File Sizes, WAV Files do not loop
3) MP3 Files
MP3 files are highly compressed and don't take that long to load but the
problem is that MP3s need to bring up an external player program and
which in some cases takes your visitors away from your site altogether.
Also, MP3 files don't loop cleanly.
PROS: Smaller File Sizes, Good Quality Possible
CONS: Needs external player software, not
loopable
4) Flash
If you own a program that can create Flash files, you will have lots of
flexibility in adding sound to your site. Flash lets you import WAV as
well as MP3 Files and then creates quite small files from these sounds
that will load automatically on your site. You can set the quality level
and therefore decide how large you want the Flash file to be. Flash also
allows you to loop short pieces of sound to create 'continuous'
background music files that can be quite small. But please note that
only imported WAV files can be looped in Flash, MP3 files will not loop
cleanly.
PROS: Great Flexibility, Small File Sizes,
especially when looping
CONS: You need expensive Flash software to
create Flash Files
5) Pre-Made Flash Loops
The newest thing on the market are pre-built Flash Music Loops. These
files are professionally recorded, loop almost indefinitely and most of
these Flash Music Loops are only about 20k in size so they load almost
instantly. Flash Music Loops are available at http://www.flashmusictracks.com
and currently there are three different loop packages available in all
kinds of music styles from classical to techno. Using these pre-built
Flash files is easy. Simply upload the "xyz.swf" Flash file to
your server and add a few lines from the corresponding "xyz.html"
file to your web page and presto...instant professional sounding
background music.
PROS: Extremely small file size, professional
quality music.
CONS: None
As you can see there are many different ways to add
background music to your web pages and you don't have to worry about
slow loading pages if you choose the right file format.
Article by Alan Steward, a
professional recording engineer and producer who worked with many
Grammy award winning groups and musicians. (c)2004 Alan Steward - http://www.musicleads.net.
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